Jasmine Crockett Says Half the Senate Is “Already Dead”

Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett has never been interested in pretending Congress is a polite place. But now that the Democrat is set to leave the House in January 2027, she’s spending time checking Republicans on the Congressional floor and in the media.

With less than 90 days until the midterm elections, Crockett is making the case that voters need to look past the political theater and pay attention to who actually has power. She sat down with actor Anthony Anderson on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to break down what she says are the main issues with the Republican Party.

“Many people right now are hurting in the country, and my answer to everyone is: look at who is in control,” she told Anderson, who is guest hosting Kimmel’s show. “On the federal level, it’s Republicans across the board. Democrats control absolutely nothing. In a state like Texas, it’s Republicans across the board.”

Crockett lost the Democratic Senate primary to state Rep. James Talarico in March, and will leave the House in January 2027. She’s been outspoken about Republicans’ attempts to axe other Black Democrats from their established districts.

RELATED: The Truth About Why Jasmine Crockett Lost the Texas Senate Race

Crockett also exposed some of the hypocrisy on Capitol Hill.

“We have our own little back rooms. So every once in a while, they will be like, ‘Hey, you can come to our back room?’” Crockett said, referring to House Republicans. “They’ll invite me for stuff. They also do things like, ‘You want to, like, get into a fight so we can go on Fox News?’ And I’m like, ‘I’ma pass.’”

Crockett built a reputation in Washington for confronting Republican politics head-on. That includes, apparently, figuring out what is going on with certain Senate Republicans, like Mitch McConnell, the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican still recovering from a fall and pneumonia.

The Democrat isn’t convinced the Senate’s aging population is operating at peak capacity.

“My theory is that maybe even half of the Senate is already dead anyway,” she joked. “They are old, old, like, old.”

And when asked whether she’d encountered more criminals in her career as a public defender or in Congress, Crockett didn’t hesitate.

“I’ve dealt with murderers, child rapists–and clearly, we got a lot of them in Congress,” she said.

But beneath Crockett’s trademark willingness to go for the jugular is a serious argument about the GOP: plenty of Republicans, she says, know exactly what they think about President Donald Trump. They’re just too afraid to say it.

“Republicans are very performative, specifically in this moment,” she said. “A lot of them don’t like Donald Trump, but they’re too afraid to say so.”

As Crockett explained it, they’re scared of backlash from MAGA.

For her, that fear is one reason voters need to pay attention to the midterms. Crockett’s argument is simple: if voters are unhappy with the direction of the country, choose new leadership.

“The American people are tired, and they’re just looking for someone that’s gonna focus on them,” she said.

Affordable housing, good-paying jobs, education and protections for workers are all top concerns for voters in 2026, according to Pew Research. Many also want Congress to serve as a check on Trump.

“If you want to start some investigations and actually see some arrests or at least us subpoenaing the information that we need as it relates to the Epstein files or anything else, you need to vote for a Democrat,” Crockett continued.

As voters continue to debate who they’ll cast their ballots for, Crockett believes the choice is easy. And while she may be leaving the House, she clearly isn’t leaving the fight.